Civil 3D, InfoDrainage, and Autodesk Docs: A Trifecta of Drainage Design Power

LOUISA HOLLAND: Hi everybody, and welcome to this session, Civil 3D InfoDrainage, and Autodesk Docs, a trifecta of drainage design power. I'm Louisa Holland, technical sales specialist here at Autodesk, and today, I'll be joined by Hunter Sparks, who will be showing us some of the InfoDrainage features. And another contributor who couldn't be here for this recording is Midori Skold, who also contributed to a lot of our knowledge on this subject.

In this presentation, we will be talking about future-looking statements, and I'm excited to get there. But please don't make any purchasing decisions based on any of these forward-looking or future statements. In this presentation, we'll be going over what is Autodesk Docs, and how does it fit into the Autodesk Cloud environment? What are some advantages of working in Autodesk docs? Then I'll switch over to Civil 3D and talk about what is needed to exchange information between Civil 3D and InfoDrainage, and we're going to use Docs as our storage platform.

Then I'll export to InfoDrainage and hand it over to Hunter, where he'll talk about where those libraries can be stored. He'll talk about exchanging pipes with Civil 3D, with rainfall data and those all important grade lines that everyone wants to show in their Civil 3D profiles. So let's get started.

I'm going to first talk about the Autodesk Construction Cloud, or you may know it in its previous iteration as BIM 360. But today, the Autodesk Cloud is the platform that contains all the different tools from planning a project all the way to handing it over back to the owner. And where we'll be storing our data for today's presentation is in the Docs portion of the Autodesk cloud.

Some other pieces that comprise the Autodesk Construction Cloud is BIM Collaborate Pro, and that's the piece that touches Civil 3D. So if you're a Civil 3D user, you will need BIM Collaborate Pro in order to share data shortcuts in the cloud. So everything we'll be showing in this presentation pertains strictly to Docs, but I just want you to know that if you are a Civil 3D user, there's additional tools available to you.

So what are some advantages of storing these projects in the cloud? It's not just the unlimited storage. There's the ability to work from anywhere. The desktop connector will automatically lock files when you open them. The version control is one of my favorite things to show. Anytime you save a CAD drawing, for example, a new version will be stored in the cloud, and that makes it really easy to compare differences between any cloud-saved file.

Once it's in the cloud, we can do things with it. If it is a DWG file, we can mark it up. We can create tasks for our colleagues, and we can create reports off of those. The Autodesk Docs environment will act as your single source of truth, and it also has a mobile app for field applications. Now I've only just scratched the surface when it comes to the capabilities of Docs, but I do want to emphasize that it's not just for storage, and it's not just for CAD files. The intent is that you would have everything in the cloud, including PDFs, Excel documents, and even laser scans, which can be very large.

Now, what Hunter and I will be showing today is the interaction between the Autodesk Docs, Civil 3D, and InfoDrainage. First, I'll start in with Autodesk Docs, which is going to store my CAD files and design files. We'll show that it's also storing our rainfall libraries, aerial photos, structure and pipe design libraries, and part matching templates. Something I also want to point out is your heart catalog in Civil 3D contains some file types that are not currently supported in the cloud, so those libraries are currently not supported, but stay tuned for some solutions to that very soon.

So I'll start in Civil 3D, where I have a surface model and some final grading. I've delineated some catchments and laid out a pipe network, but when I laid it out, I wasn't concerned about the pipe sizing because I'm going to make Hunter do that. He'll take it over to InfoDrainage where he'll perform some analysis and most importantly, size that pipe network based on a designed storm.

Info drainage has some capabilities above and beyond what Civil 3D can do-- most importantly, some of the low-impact design, modeling things like ponds and underground structures. Once Hunter makes that update to the design and I want to plot the EGL and HGL into CAD, the hydraulic grade lines and energy grade lines, he'll save it, and I'll be able to pull it through Docs back to my project. So the design will update, and from there, I can do things like create PNP sheets and maybe do some more iterations on the design if some changes are needed.

The first step in working with the Autodesk Docs environment is to create a new project in the web. So a project admin will create the new project. We can give it a name, a project number, and a project type. Project type really isn't used for anything other than categorizing the project.

The template is optional, but we're going to omit that because I'll manually create some folders in the next steps. I'll turn on products for myself and set my role if I'm going to be a participant in this project. If you are an account admin and making projects but don't need to be a project member, you don't have to set the product up for yourself. I'm adding my colleagues, and then I'm going to assign them roles. And these roles will determine their project permissions, as well as allow me to easily assign tasks to them through the Issues function.

My next step is I'm going to give permissions to my BIM manager and Civil engineer, and that will automatically add Midori and Hunter to this folder. And I'm doing this at the top level, so every folder that I make beneath that will also inherit this folder structure and permissions. So here, I'm going ahead and just creating some new folders. I'm separating out my information by data. I'm going to keep my libraries in a separate folder, and I'll keep my InfoDrainage working project in a separate folder. I can add folders for anything else, and I think that's all there is. Yep.

So once I create folders, the next step is to go to the desktop. Now I need to go on my desktop connector and activate the project so that it syncs to my hard drive. I need that for both InfoDrainage and Civil 3D to see the project through Windows Explorer. So I'll go through and turn on this new project-- AU 2024 InfoDrainage-- and now I'll be able to drag and drop files from my desktop to that new folder or any of its subfolders, of course. When I work in Civil 3D and InfoDrainage, that is going to act like a shared network drive.

Next, we'll go into just a quick video reviewing working with pipe layout in Civil 3D. When it comes to pipes, the first step in Civil 3D is to have a network parts list, and that's the list that determines what structures get placed as you're drawing your pipe network. You need a matching library on the InfoDrainage side, and ideally, they'll have the same sizes so that when you pass data back and forth, there's no question that a 12-inch pipe over here is a 12-inch pipe on the InfoDrainage side.

The other piece, of course, we have pipes, and we have structures that connect to those pipes. And again, we have an allowable list of structures that can be used in both programs. Part of the Civil 3D side is the rules that are associated with each part, and that's what determines the initial slope and depth of the pipe network as you're placing it in CAD. We have a corresponding structure list over on the InfoDrainage side, and we'll see that that can be stored in the Autodesk Docs environment as well.

One of the most important pieces of exchanging data between InfoDrainage and Civil 3D is the part mapping. Because not all of the pieces in Civil 3D have corresponding shapes on the InfoDrainage side, we have to match the products together so there's only circular pipes in InfoDrainage, but there's many different pipe shapes in Civil 3D. So we have to resolve some of those discrepancies with our part mapping list. You can have this preloaded, or you can have the program map that for you. If everything lines up, it should go very smoothly. You'll see in my clip that I do have some fixing to do or I change the part mapping as it comes back in. And I'll point that out when we see that live.

So working in Civil 3D is going to be where we develop our surface models. This is where we create our initial pipe layouts. If we're using Civil 3D to delineate catchments, we would do it at this point and associate those catchments to a pipe network structure. You can add additional data to catchments like the runoff method. But today, we'll be focusing on pipes, and you can very easily export the catchments and their associated structures directly to InfoDrainage.

So let's just do a quick review of the pipe layout piece. You create the pipe network. I'm selecting the parts list, which is important in that part matching portion of the steps. The first step is to set your default structure. So as you're clicking in CAD, what are we drawing? I'm going to leave that as a 12-inch pipe, and I'm using a node snap to select some predetermined places along my design.

What's happening as I click is the rim elevation of the structure is going to be set by the surface that is associated with this, and the slope will be set by the rule associated with the pipes. And here, I'm adding a headwall structure at the end towards my pond and just a very simple pipe network. We also have the ability to create catchments in Civil 3D, and I'll just show a simple create catchment from surface model. I'm turning off the site, but I had that imagery on just to prove that it is a real site in New Hampshire.

I'll create a catchment group indicating this is our post-development watershed. And I'll create a catchment from the surface. So if your surface is high-quality enough, meaning it's got nice regular triangulation, a high-quality surface will allow you to create a catchment directly from it. In some cases, you may have a low-quality surface or maybe not enough data, and in that case, you can manually delineate watersheds.

Now, once I've created a pipe network and catchments, I'm ready to export InfoDrainage. And there's only three buttons on the Innovise tab that you need to worry about. And the one we'll worry about here is Export to InfoDrainage. We're going to go out and select our docks location where our project is stored.

This is going to be our working design-- overwrite an existing one that I had out there, and let's go ahead and hit Next. Here I am telling it which network I wish to work with and what surface is associated to it. And since I laid out this structure network with only a handful of pipes-- I just have 12-inch pipes in this case, my part mapping manager picked up everything I needed to-- I didn't need to manually adjust anything on the way out. So I exported it and put it in a place that Hunter can work with it. And now I can pass it to him to show his piece of the workflow. Take it away, Hunter.

HUNTER SPARKS: Thank you, Lou. As mentioned, I'm going to pick up from there and move into InfoDrainage and show how you can leverage Autodesk Docs to store templates, open up your file, run a simulation, and then save the model back for Lou to import back into Civil 3D. To start, just for an overview on what InfoDrainage is, it is a full design and analysis software allowing you to size your drainage networks so your pipes, your ponds, your inlets all working together in a true to sight fashion. You're allowed to bring in your CAD file as background to see the location of your green infrastructure on site.

So the steps we're going to go through today, we're going to open our model directly from Autodesk Docs. We're going to leverage some different templates. We are going to run through a pipe-sizing exercise, and then we are going to validate our results, run the model, and look at the reporting.

The first step is opening the model directly from Autodesk Docs. Because Lou exported from Civil 3D and saved in a folder that I was able to access, you're able to open up the site, which will pull forward the catchments, the pipe network, and the surface. We're then going to take the CAD file, put it as a background so we can see where our roadways are, and you could also take it the next step and bring in your stormwater controls.

So you simply, within InfoDrainage open go to File, Open, and then find your Autodesk Docs folder that you are working in. Within the AU 2024, we're going to navigate to where Lou saved the file, and we're going to open our export from Civil 3D. Now we can see that the catchments and the pipes followed through, and since Lou chose to export the surface, we have the background surface as well. If we open the containing folder, we'll see that the surface was also saved in the Autodesk Docs folder. So not only was it just the model, but the surface that followed through was saved in the same location and accessible.

Since we have the rest of this information in, the next thing we want to do is add the background layers so we can see where our road is within these catchments. To do that, we'll go to the Import tab, choose our CAD data, and then we will navigate to where we saved our CAD files. In this example, one [AUDIO OUT] within Autodesk Docs. This is going to load all of the linework available that we can pull in, and we're going to go ahead and Deselect All and only turn on the linework that we are worried about today.

So that's really going to include the property lines so that we can see where the boundaries of our properties are, as well as all of the information for the road, the center, and the sidewalks. This will allow us to build out a more flushed-out site with more information that we can view and leverage in our analysis. Because the CAD files are being brought in tied to the line work, you also have the ability to turn off and on the visible layers giving you more control about what is being seen in your drawing.

So now that we have opened our file, we have added the background layers, we're going to start leveraging some templates. Templates can be saved and opened from Autodesk Docs, as we can see in these screenshots. Different items from Infodrainage and different file types can be saved and leveraged on Autodesk Docs. This is a good way to allow you to share information across different projects and start setting up a template library or toolbox.

Some template options are rainfall, stormwater controls, manholes, pipes, and a lot of different items that go with it, reports, and many more. In this first example, we are going to set up rainfall. As we can see, we are in an empty site. So we're going to go to the rainfall manager and open up the NOAA Atlas 14. You could also go to SES, temporal patterns, or a IDF table or a single curve.

By leveraging the connection with NOAA Atlas 14, we have the ability to search for our site. Luckily, our CAD designer provided us with the latitude and longitude so we can look for our exact site and generate the rainfall data. We can look at either precipitation or rainfall, and we can also choose the return periods. So in this example, we're going to look at four different storms-- the one-year, the five-year, the 25-year, and the 100-year. The storm duration, we're going to go with 1,440 minutes, and now, we're going to go ahead and generate that rainfall data.

Next, you can choose your temporal distribution. In this example, we're going to go with fourth and 90%. Once you have gone through these steps, your rainfall is generated, and you can view these in the Choose Rainfall tab. We select Noah. We'll now see that we have four different storms within that storm package.

So we created this in a standalone document. How do we get this to our model that we're using for our design? Well, by simply choosing the Save, and once again navigating back to our Autodesk Docs location, we can save this library in our rainfall templates, give it a name, and save it.

Once saved, we can go back to our design file and bring that rainfall in. Under the same rainfall manager, we can choose the Open option, navigate to that template-- of course, just like you hear a lot during this presentation, all within Autodesk Docs, and find where we have those libraries and the rainfall and pull that in. Now, by just opening it, the design storm in NOAA, it's going to take us to that exact location, and in our Choose Rainfall, we will see now that we have those four rainfalls where previously we had none.

Rainfall is really just one item that can be templatized and leveraged in InfoDrainage. Another one that we're going to look at is looking at stormwater controls but also, all of this lives within an object template which controls the inflows, the junctions and the stormwater controls. So if we go to File and Object Templates, we will have the option to open an object template library. So as you can see here, we just have a bioretention, a normal chamber, a pond, and some other information.

If we open up the object template, we will see that it will pull forward additional examples. Now, under the stormwater control, we have a rain garden with information tied to that as well as under the chamber, we have added some ADS structures. If we want to leverage these in our designs, we would just simply need to go over to the toolbox where we have those saved and drag and drop them into our drawing.

We'll start with the ADS MC 7,200. And if we Zoom in and open up that structure, we will see the information that is pre-built for the chamber length, wall thickness and other information that followed through from the template. If we wanted to create a new template-- I will say this is not an ADS example now. This is just a general example. We can update the chamber length, diameter, height, and other information, and then, if we right-click back on the object, we can add it to template and will be a part of that library. And now it will show up under our toolbox. If we wanted to leverage this in our design, we could go to one of our ponds, right click, change the template, and assign it a new stormwater control.

The third option that we'll look at is bringing in pipe-size libraries and their related minimum and maximum slopes to use in our network design criteria. So under the pipe size library, we're currently looking at default, where we only have two options. But if we go back to our Autodesk Docs project and go to our pipes and structures, we'll have an example of multiple sizes being brought in. So if we bring in that pipes and slopes, we will see that it updates it to include additional pipes with minimum and maximum slopes. You still have the freedom to go through and add additional diameters with the information that are tied to it.

This is just three examples of what can be templatized and how leveraging Autodesk Docs can really help you create that template library. So what we're going to move on to is actually walking through an initial pipe-sizing exercise using the network design wizard. With the network design wizard, you choose your criteria, choose your design options, and then review your results.

We are first going to look at one of our flow paths or a run of our pipes and see that we have shallow, just even-sized pipes, all the same size. And if we go to the preliminary sizing and open up the network design wizard, we're going to choose that same flow path to size, but you could choose any of them, and we're also going to look at the different locking options. For the locking options, you can lock the elevations or all of the data so that it will not change. This can be beneficial when you have a shallow pipe crossing or you're trying to tie into an existing system. We're just going to choose none for this example and let it do the full design.

Once we move forward, we can choose the peak flow calculation, the rational method in the United States. Choose our rainfall. For this one. We're going to size to the 25-year return period. Under the pipe size libraries, if we were to open that, we'll see that we still have the pipe sizes that we brought in from Docs. You have options to lock your slope, slope inverse, slope and crowns, but we're going to have it do, once again, a full design. You also have the option to choose different design options. You can minimize excavation, where it will be shallower, larger pipes, or you can minimize pipe diameter where it will be deeper and smaller pipes.

There are other design criteria that you can set in this example that we will provide additional information in the handout. If we press Next, it will go through and tell us the results of our design. Everything that's highlighted in orange was updated, and if you hover over it, you can see what the previous sizes were. When we press Finish, you also have the option to press Cancel and not take in the designs, or you can press Finish, and then you'll get an overview of the network design report that has flow, capacity, and other information.

Now, we can go back to that same flow path and see that our pipes have been upped in size in some locations and put deeper. So by choosing the rainfall that we use from the template, having it run the design, we now have a system that has been sized. Although today, we chose the sizing of pipes, we also have calculators for ponds and other stormwater controls as well as some calculators for inlets.

Finally, we've run through our design. We now want to run an analysis and generate some reports. We're going to be focusing on two types of reports today, but we'll also touch on a little bit of other result options. The two reporting types are the comparison report and the flexible reporting.

Now that we've added those storms, if we go to the [AUDIO OUT] tab, we can go ahead and validate our model. The validation tool is a tool that allows you to check to see if your model is hydraulically sound before kicking off an analysis. In this example, we needed to add a Manning's end to the bottom of our pond before we could run the analysis. And now our analysis runs without errors.

Once the analysis is done, we can go to the Results tab where we have different options to view your results. You can look at your profiles, overall summary reports, itemized results, or that comparison reports. If you look at the profile, you can switch between storms and see where the HGLs and EGLs are in the pipes, as well as press play through the simulation and see how the water changes over time. And you can also see where there is overtopping of the pond. This can be exported to CAD as linework or can be exported as an image to save in your appendix or use in your appendices for your drainage report.

Under the summaries, you can also look at the different items and get a tabular overview, or under the item results, you can look at the hydrographs for your connections, stormwater controls, junctions, or inflows. Next, we're going to go ahead and open the comparison report. The comparison report is really a way to compare different items within your design. Today, we're going to focus on the phase comparison, which you can also look at junction stormwater controls, inflows, or connections.

With the phase comparison, you can choose between your different phases, of course-- existing and proposed, in this example, you can choose your different storms, your different tabulated results and different graphical results to build this out to show the information that you see fit. What you can also do is leverage templates to show the information that you are required or would like to see. So in this example, we only have two items checked, but if we open our existing and proposed template-- you know it's saved on Autodesk Docs-- and then open the comparison report again, now the information that we want to show is highlighted in the checkbox.

If we update the preview, it's going to generate our report for us. So now, we have those tabular results for the existing and proposed phase as well as graphical reports at the bottom of the page. So now, all of this together in a nice, clean reporting format, you can, of course, print that out or save it. Finally, we're going to touch on flexible reporting. Reporting for drainage design is a very important aspect, and it can be very cumbersome because each municipality and jurisdiction likes to see their information in different ways.

So with flexible reporting, we allowed you to turn on and off certain information, rearrange the [AUDIO OUT] there in the order that you want to see. What you can also do is set up templates for your report options to turn on the data that you would like to see. So in this example, we just have the connection names on, but what if we wanted to show additional information? We can open one of those templates for the flexible reporting, and what it will do is update our view and toggle on the information that we want to see.

Now, where we just had connection names, we now have information like HGL, EGL, your catchment max inflow, and other important information. You can look at it all together. You could look at it for your different flow paths. And you can switch between your different storms. We really want to put the power in the hands of the users to customize these reports as well as possible. But of course, we always know that there might be a need for more customizations, so we do have an option to export it directly into Excel.

Now that we've walked through how to open up the file from Autodesk Docs, apply some templates, run through some sizing, and set up the reporting, we could save our model back on the Autodesk Docs, which is where my colleague, Lou, is going to pick it up to do the final design. Lou, take it away.

LOUISA HOLLAND: Thanks, Hunter. Great job doing all that hydrology work. You know us designers. All we know is we have to do it. So now that Hunter has gone through and created that design, I'm going to use the second of the two buttons that we'll be showing today, and that is Import from InfoDrainage. And I just go back and select the file that Hunter saved. I choose what phase to import and what network to overwrite in the Civil 3D drawing, and I'm going to go ahead and not re-import the service. I'll use the one that's already there.

Here's our part mapping again. And it looks like our pipe came across perfectly, but I need to guide it a little bit when it comes to some of our junctions. So I'll go ahead and set what junctions should be coming in with this structure or with this pipe network, and I can click Finish. You'll see in the profile view that the pipes will update. It's telling me that there's catchment data in the-- there we go. It's telling it that there's catchment data in the file that is not coming across, that's not in the Civil 3D drawing. And that's OK. I'm mostly concerned about the pipe sizing here.

Next, I want to show how to display HGL and EGL in Civil 3D because it's not entirely intuitive how this happens. It's actually linked to the pipe style that's part of the profile. So I'll do-- right click, Edit pipe style. Switch over to this display tab and profile direction and turn on EGL and HGL. And now I'm giving it a little bit more interesting color so we can see it in our graphic easier. This is a new functionality as of 2024.

And there we have all-important grade lines that will be important for our city or municipality to approve our design. All right. Now I want to talk about what's on the horizon and-- next, I'm going to talk about the pipe tools that are on the horizon. And you may remember that earlier on, I talked about how it's sometimes difficult to exchange data between Civil 3D and InfoDrainage because they don't have the same structure types. For example, in our current version of Civil 3D 2025, there is no such thing as a pond object, but that's about to change.

As of AU this year, we'll be announcing this new object is coming to the Civil 3D family of objects. And so it will create a surface. It'll be part of the design that can be controlled and exchanged with InfoDrainage, most importantly. So let's go ahead, and I'm going to play a video that was put together by our product team to display a little bit of what they're working on. Here, they're defining the outline of a pond object, and you just drew kind of chunky lines. And now we can add more realistic grading to that pond. You

Can adjust the shape, and as it forms, it's automatically creating a surface. And it's also going to be able to be connected to other drainage structures so we have that complete picture. Now, that's not the only new drainage object that our product team is working on. There will be, in the future, probably more of those bioretention features. Look for things like that underground storage object types that we can exchange back and forth to have a much more seamless drainage design.

If you are interested in learning more about the drainage analysis beta, these are all the new tools that are getting added to Civil 3D to boost what we have and supplement the drainage design tools. Use the QR code on your screen, and that will take you to the Autodesk futures website, and it'll allow you to click right in and join the beta program for Autodesk futures. They were looking for people who are interested in testing these new features and providing feedback, so if you want to get involved, I highly encourage that. And the product team would be super appreciative of your feedback as well.

So that concludes this presentation. On behalf of Midori, Hunter, and myself, thank you for your participation, and we look forward to meeting you in person. Thank you.